Spritely Conventions
by Cadence
Summary: Caitlin's bored at the Bronze before she decides to hide from an ex at the table of a random cute guy. Companion to Morbid Phrasing.


Things that are not mine: BtVS and all characters and situations created within the show, the Sneaker Pimps and their song "Waterbaby", Sprite, Fuel and their song "Untitled".

Spritely Conventions

_Your heart is served cold_   
_your sights are set in perfect stone_   
_and when you go, you go alone_   
_and when you stand, you're on your own_

The slow, rocking acoustics of the song filtered through the warm, heavy atmosphere of the Bronze. Visibly in tune, dark shafts of light pierces the clouded dance floor rhythmically. In worship, in supplication, hands rise to taste the heat, the purity that falls from the ceiling. Arms are outstretched that the dancers might know the truth that swirls in the music.

_I wash the streets from your skin when you come home_   
_I wash the streets from your_ _skin when you come home._

I watch. I watch and as the beat floats through me, my hand itches for my paints and my eyes ache to see the image as a scene rendered by my own hand. I'm certainly feeling poetic tonight. Sipping my Sprite, I content myself by closing my eyes, and swaying in the void between the tables and the dance floor.

_We're nothing like friends_   
_you have no time to lend_

I don't feel the smile before it lights my face, it's just there. I like that, feels like a gift. In a silly, quixotic way, that seems wild to me. The coolness of the music lifts my eyelids and I somehow slide toward the stage. My Sprite is in the air, supplicating with the hands of others. The image strikes me and I almost can't stopping laughing at the sacrilegiousness.

_And if you're guilt then I'm the shame_   
_And if I'm hurt then you're the blame_

I bounce softly into a turn, happy with myself for coming tonight. No band, but the DJ seems to share my tastes. I turn, and he's there. Jason. My Sprite has lost all will to worship. My smile is lost, face frozen as anger boils within me. The contrast of temperature sears my eyes as I back away. My space is quickly overtaken, a new growth of youths seizing my tiled land. The feeling in my chest is something like pain. I don't like that, makes me hate him all the more.

_You wash my trace from your skin and you leave again_   
_You wash my trace from your skin and you leave again_

At my back, a young man sits reading at a table. Seems like he's been waiting for a while. In one part of my mind I hope I don't bump into it, but that's the part that knows I'm in the Bronze. The rest of me is watching Jason. The rest of me is trying to escape and wishing he were dying instead of me.

"Just stake me and call me Jesse."

Again I turn. The young man isn't reading. I debate for a moment. A surreptitious glance to the dance floor decides for me. Rude is rude, but escape and saving face tend to end up interesting despite that. Jason evaporates from my mind, from my world. I smirk.

"That's an interesting way of introducing yourself," I said, said I.

_Random laid plans_   
_40 days of one night stands_

He's startled, he nearly falls from his chair. He stares, I snicker and sit uninvited.

He looks around him, obviously caught off guard by my forwardness, "Yes, yes it is."

I don't laugh, but I feel it and he sees that. I hold out my hand, I offer my Sprite to him. His eyebrows are knitted in confusion. I sigh in my misunderstood-artist way, "My customs may seems odd to you, but it is an appropriate greeting among my people."

_And when you go you go alone_   
_You walk the cross you made your own_

"So you like greetings do you?"

I remove the Sprite can, letting it drop to the table with a dexterous plop, "Yes, indeed, and several other affirming words, Jesse." He opens his mouth, then closes it. "My name is Caitlin." Except that it isn't. Ah, well.

I wait for his come back, but he is again scanning the crowd.

_I wash the streets from your skin when you come home_   
_I wash the streets from your skin when you come home_

"Ditched?"

His attention snaps onto me audibly. He sighs, "Yeah." He nods sharply, gestures to an empty chair. I hadn't noticed it. I'd noticed the other two. He was supposed to be one of many.

I put on a comforting expression, touch his hand, "Do you want to talk about it, because, while all I may know about you is your name that you like introducing yourself suicidally, I want to help."

That cracks him, he laughs. Regaining his seriousness, he decrees, "You. Are. Weird."

"But tell me what you really think."

Shaking his head, he asks, "Why are you talking to me? I'm not complaining, but there is a certain weirdness factor to having a beautiful woman suddenly sit down at my table and engage me in heartfelt conversation."

My finger traces the rim of my Sprite flirtatiously, "Maybe I thought you were cute and wanted to take advantage of your body." He raises an eyebrow. Oh, so he wanted the truth . . . "I was dancing in that place where people dance."

"Mm, I've heard of that place," he drawls.

I nod empathically, "And then I needed to be a place that wasn't there." Again with the brow raising. "Skeezy-unliked cheater guy." I sense a wince within him, but it is warring with the sympathy in him and is unexpressed. I pretend to not notice. "Sorry to say this but," I put a full weight of over-acted dramatics on my conclusion, "you were a convenient out."

Jesse shrugs, "I've been worse."

The song has changed, something fast. Well, in comparison to the last. Of course, everything is fast in comparison to the Sneaker Pimps. I resist the urge to drag my new found friend, hopefully, on the dance floor. I tilt my head, he was reading the book on the table. It's old, would be a tome if it were thicker. I never thought a tome was necessarily a thick book, really, just a old one. Leather bound and cracked. It's a tome. _Prophetics of Vision_.

_I wanted to feel something_   
_To be something_   
_To see something_

Jesse's eyes widen as he notices my fixation. He quickly covers the spine of the book, turns it toward himself. As he does, his stressed expression belies his equally stressed quirk of a smile, "It's, uh, a very interesting book."

"Sounds like."

"No really, it is.. On several levels, in fact. On the one hand . . . no." He grins, "It's one of the most boring books I've ever read."

_I wanted to find_   
_One thing that was mine_   
_I'd leave this behind_

"Then whyfore?" I look to him imploringly.

"Art I reading it? Wacky, ancient tomes such as this," he shakes it at me, "are studied quite muchly by friends such as these," he gestures again to the empty chairs.

That's . . .sad. I look into his eyes, hoping that he's joking. He is, but only because he means it. My head tilts and I begin to wonder if I'm going to need a chiropractor for that, "Who are they?"

_But I can't find my way_   
_To get far away_   
_And bury these days_

Jesse gives me a half smile that is truth. I wish I could write or describe in anything other than my head. "They," he begins, "are better than the world. They save the world and make it breathe in their heartbeats."

Mmm, poetic. Wait. I blink, "Why aren't they here?"

He sure shrugs a lot, "People to be, places to meet."

I pin him down with a look, "Did you know that inversion of words, sounds, or phrases as one _might _assume you just did is called a spoonerism?"

"No, I did not. Have I told you how strange you are?"

"No, but I'm fairly sure that was covered earlier by 'weird'."

He waves his hand, dismissively, "Ah, carry on."

_Fantasy_   
_Once reality_   
_Becomes such a parody_

I tap my fingers against my Sprite, "Do you do this often? Wait for them like this?"

His eyes study the table, "Sometimes it seems like that's all I ever do."

Our conversation lulls as I adjust to that. I'm trying to think of a response when Jesse asks, "Did you ever define someone as a school friend?"

"Yes," I say, drawing out the word in hopes of explanation

"I think that's what I've become to my friends, except without the school part. We talk at, uh, work but never at any other time. They don't call me and we don't go anywhere anymore. I'm a school friend. It kinda sucks."

_If I could find_   
_One thing that was mine_   
_I'd leave this behind_

"You don't go to school with them, then?" I ask, tactlessly.

Jesse slumps in his chair, "Yes, I am townie, non-college boy. You may flee if you want to."

"Uh, why?"

He didn't expect to need to explain, "Because, um, stuff."

"Because you're not in college?" I supply.

He nods, "That's the reason. That I said earlier, mind you."

"I know _I _heard you say it." He smiles agreeably at that, "But I don't think I'm gonna flee."

_But I can't find my way_   
_To get far away_   
_And bury these days_

Jesse sounds hurt, "Why not?"

I lean in, "'Cause I've got a secret."

His eyes widen in fear. Real fear. That's kind of funny. His eyes search wildly for his friends, or something, before settling on the huge mirror behind me. He smiles, as though reassured, before blinking in confusion, "Has that always been there?"

"The mirror?" I look back at it, watching the dancers' reflections, "All the years I've come here."

He begins to laugh helplessly at some joke that I'm not in on. I kick him under the table, demanding childishly, "So do you wanna hear my secret or not?!"

_If shining_   
_Or if shaking_   
_It's reality faking_

He bites his lip, "Of course."

I check to both sides of me, lean in closer, "I'm not in college, either."

He's stunned. Jesse stutters his response to me, "But . .with the perceptiveness . . and bold . . how?"

I pose grandiosely, "I am an _artiste_! In training."

He laughs at me. I laugh with him. I imagine that we draw looks, though I know that we do not. As my laughter fades, I finally bring up the point that made me sit in the first place, "Why would I _stake_ you?"

"'Cause of . . . the fun?" I frown at him, "It's the slanguage of me and mine. I don't question your Spritely conventions so don't mock my morbid phrasing."

_If I could find_   
_One thing that was mine_   
_I'd leave this behind_

"I think this has helped my hell given fury at mankind," I say conversationally.

"Really?" asks Jesse ponderously.

Oh, I'm imperious on this one, "It seems to be less of there."

"A goodly thing has been wrought," he agrees.

"Are you sure that reading that tome is good for you?" I worry.

He ignores me, "This conversing thing-y has been of the not bad," I glare, "of the good for me as well."

_But I can't find my way_   
_To get far away_   
_And bury these days_

Behind him I see two girls and a boy approaching, I get the feeling that they are his friends, "Well, if you need more of that goodly thing, and I'm not around, take two of these, "I tap my Sprite can," and call me in the morning."

"Uh-how?"

I pull out my hand-dandy, trusty pen and pull his hand towards me. I write my phone number on it, "With this mystical number, punched in correct sequence on an amazing mechanism, my voice can be summoned."

He grins, "I'll have remember that."

* * *

Buffy and Co are Trademarks and are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the WB, Fox Television, and whoever else has rights to them. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *


End file.
